February 15th, 2011: The Saddest Music in the World

What It’s About: In 1933 Winnipeg, Beer baroness Lady Helen Port-Huntley (Isabella Rossellini) sponsors a competition to determine what nation has the saddest music in the world. The connections of three of the competitors, both to each other and to Lady Port-Huntley, drive events at the competition, and lead to tragedy.

Why Watch it Today?: Today is National Flag Day of Canada. A holiday since 1996, National Flag Day marks the date in 1965 when Canada adopted its distinctive red maple leaf flag. Writer/Director Guy Maddin is one of Canada’s most distinctive, and inventive filmmakers, and this “Winnipeg” set fantasy is one of his more accessible (yet still quite odd) films, and it features Fydor Kent singing “The Red Maple Leaves”. Maddin’s films are a unique combination of the style of German Expressionist films, silent melodramas, and 1930s musicals with the art house sensibilities of filmmakers like David Lynch.